“Fables, Friends and Fruitcake!”

Where: Meet at Robinson-Rose Visitor Information Center, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park

Tickets: Adults, $10; children (ages 13-17), $5; 12 and under free when accompanied by a paying adult

Some of the most popular yuletide tales are set in the 19th century, star larger-than-life characters — St. Nick, meet Ebenezer Scrooge! — and are dusted in snow. San Diego, then, seems an unlikely location for classic Christmas stories.

But only for the lack of snowflakes.

Our history supplies all the other ingredients. Now a big tourist attraction in a small neighborhood, Old Town in the 19th century was the setting for some of California’s best Christmas tales.

These yarns are populated by colorful figures: revolutionaries, gossips, sea captains, vaqueros, toy makers. Old Town’s residents came from Mexico, Spain, Ireland, Italy, China and across the United States. They were Catholics and Protestants, Mormons and Jews.

“This is a small town where many people and cultures are coming together,” said Guire Cleary, a senior park aide at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where employees try to keep the 19th century alive. “People coming here might start out enemies and end up family, friends or at least neighbors.”

Capturing Satan

For thousands of years before the Spanish explorers’ arrival in 1769, Kumeyaay Indians inhabited Old Town, which they called Kosa-aay (pronounced Ko-sa-eye). Perhaps it was inevitable that this area, near the confluence of a river and a bay, would draw settlers.

But for centuries, winter had no special meaning here. The Kumeyaay had no Christmas traditions, nor was Kosa-aay the scene of winter solstice celebrations.

“Most of the Kumeyaay ceremonies there were held around the fall equinox,” said Abel Silvas, a tribal council member with the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians and part of Old Town’s interpretive advisory committee.

But in the Spanish era (1769-1821), under the Mexican Republic (1821-46) and through the U.S. period (1846 to today), Old Town acquired a wealth of Christmas customs. Some of these put a multicultural spin on Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”; perhaps the most enchanting involves the devil, the governor of Alta California and a traditional play.

“La Pastorela” is a drama about shepherdesses keeping watch before Jesus’ birth. The cast usually includes angels, hermits, vagabonds and a wickedly funny El Diablo.

“‘La Pastorela’ is very often adapted to topical or current humor,” Cleary said. “It almost always includes satire of the political and social events of the day.”

On Christmas Eve 1837, the play was held in Juan Bandini’s gracious home (later the Casa de Bandini restaurant and now being restored as the Cosmopolitan Hotel). The plum role of El Diablo went to an aspiring politician, Pio Pico. The setting and casting must have seemed appropriate to Gov. Juan Alvarado, who was battling a revolt led by Bandini and supported by Pico. From the state capital of Monterey, the governor had noted these devilish plots hatching in far-off San Diego.